We have an ongoing search, my partner Jess and I, for the world’s most memorable mouthful of food. This isn’t a hunt for the best meal, or even the best dish. It’s just a single bite that is absolute perfection, a sensation so memorable and even transcendental that you’re never the same again.
This is, of course, a search without an end, because there’s no such thing as actual perfection, and there are always new bites to discover.
Credit: Jamie Brown
So the list is already long: the piece of nigiri sushi with marbled otoro tuna in Japan; the early-morning slurp of Saigon pho; the fire of a good Chiang Mai khao soi; the fatty crunch of perfectly cooked guanciale in the carbonara at Roscioli in Rome.
And today, we’re going to add to the list. Not with Michelin-starred fine-dining or high-end produce, but with plain old bread and butter.
The city is St-Jean-de-Luz, a seaside haven in the far south-west of France. Nearby there’s foodie heaven San Sebastian, wine-country Bordeaux, the seafood-rich Atlantic. This place has gastronomic bona fides.
The market here is called Les Halles, a historic covered space that is open every day, though on Tuesdays and Fridays it gets distinctly swollen as local farmers arrive and set up shop around its uncovered exterior, selling fruits and vegetables, farmyard cheeses and house-made charcuterie to the appreciative masses.
Intoxicating: Les Halles, St-Jean-de-Luz.Credit: Alamy
Inside, the permanent stall-owners sell oysters from Arcachon and Brittany; they peddle cheeses from the Pays Basque, this local area, everything from tiny, crumbly goats’ cheeses to big wheels of cows’-milk blue, hard alpine cheeses and fragrant washed-rinds; there’s someone selling coquille Saint-Jacques; another has pure-bred chickens and ducks.
It’s intoxicating just strolling around, almost overwhelming. There’s barely anywhere in the world better than a French market.